


study session

by mellowheart



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Malia Tate, Bisexual Stiles Stilinski, F/F, Lesbian Lydia Martin, Malia Tate-centric, Minor Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, No One Is Straight Yall, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 13:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14874432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mellowheart/pseuds/mellowheart
Summary: Malia questions her sexuality.





	study session

            _**Malia didn’t pay much attention**_ to her sexuality until the pack defeated the nogitsune, which left much time for her to not only learn how to control her powers, but to wonder if her romantic and sexual feelings paralleled other people’s. There was also the trauma from the death of her adopted mother and sister, which manifested itself in sweat-inducing nightmares and the way she gripped the steering wheel when Lydia gave her a driving lesson for the first time; the memory of the street lights that cut through the car windows and the ear-shattering screams were the only things that were clear in her mind, whereas the lessons her teachers taught her (or tried to, at least) created a jumbled mess in her psyche. She could still taste blood on her tongue sometimes, thick and stale - not at all like the blood that used to drip from her maw after hunting for food during her days as a full-time coyote; that blood was laced with guilt and self-hatred, even though her friends told her repeatedly that the deaths of her family weren’t her fault.

          She was used to those thoughts, though; after being trapped in her animal form for eight years, she’d become accustomed to the grief and pain that wrapped around her heart. In fact, she welcomed those emotions, because they made her stand taller and face the biggest and baddest villains in Beacon Hills without flinching. They drove her determination to survive high school, despite the confusion and frustration that painted her brain - at least, until Lydia gave her a copy of her own notes. Lydia Martin, a girl with the most brilliant mind she’d ever had the blessing of witnessing, made her question whether she was as straight as she’d initially thought. Malia was well-aware of the concepts of gayness and straight...-ness, but she’d always assumed she fit into the latter category because of her affection for Stiles Stilinski.

            Ah, Stiles. He was energy that buzzed around in a closed bottle, and the warmth that emanated from his lanky limbs along with the sweet scent that traveled from his pores aroused a sudden lust in her; although, in retrospect, it probably wasn’t a smart idea to suck numerous hickeys along the surface of his neck and pin him down on the couch in the basement of Eichen House...actually, she didn’t have an excuse for that. It wasn’t a smart idea, period. She basically took Stiles and ran with him, not really concerned with other people or her sexual orientation; being with him was an inhalation of fresh air, and while Malia was ready to rush into anything she hadn’t tried yet, Stiles pulled back the reigns on his own enthusiasm and grounded her.

            However, Lydia was different in that she was the eye of a hurricane, calm and intimidating. Malia stared at her now from across the kitchen table in the Martin household, textbooks open and candy wrappers littering the space here and there. What she paid attention to the most was her hair, which was currently pulled away from her face in a casual ponytail; it was distractingly soft-looking, the gentle waves bouncing slightly when she turned her head. The werecoyote had yearned to run her fingers through the red locks since the day she’d met her, which happened to be a few hours after she’d transformed into a human again; one of her natural talents was noticing beauty no matter what kind of situation she was in. So when the girl brought her another blanket in case she was still cold, Malia allowed her eyes to linger on her large green eyes; the shade always took her back to the woods during spring, where she used to wander around in the soft grass for an unmeasurable amount of time. Her eyes mimicked the softness of the moss that grew near trees, and everyday, she had to restrain herself from staring.

            Sometimes, like now, she didn’t realize she was staring until Lydia pointed it out, concern etched on her features.

            “Are you okay?” she asked, her brows tilted inwards and her chin resting on her fist.

            Malia looked away from her plush, full lips before she did something stupid, like kiss her; instead, she traced her finger over the mouse pad on her laptop, waking it up and typing in her password. “Yeah, I just got distracted.”

            “You do that a lot,” Lydia noted, sitting up and pulling the left side of her green cardigan from where it had slid down her shoulder. “I can’t tell if you’re bored or have something on your mind - probably both, if you’re staring into space while we study.”

            “I’m fine,” Malia replied with a huff of laughter, opening up a new tab and pulling up Google. When in doubt, ask strangers on the internet and hope they’re not giving you false information; but then again, she was sitting in the same room as a human encyclopedia, so she could always validate her suspicions. However, she wanted to research for herself.

            The redhead looked back down at her AP Biology textbook, which was open to a page with a lemur and a bunch of bolded terms Malia wasn’t even gonna try to understand. “Alright, sweetheart. Just make sure to focus - you have a test tomorrow, and you and I both would be really disappointed if you flunked because you chose to waste time.”

            A burst of fondness tugged Malia’s lips upwards, and she flicked her eyes away from the computer screen to let her gaze linger on the girl for a bit longer; Lydia was a college professor in the body of a tiny seventeen year-old girl, and it never failed to amuse her. She was also the most patient person she knew, which explained why she spent hours at a time helping Malia understand her schoolwork, and why she took the time to write down notes specifically for her.

            Her eyes returned to the search bar, which stared at her in its blank glory. After a few minutes of blinking at the screen and hovering her fingers over the keyboard, she hesitantly typed the following:

            **what do you call a person who likes boys and girls**

            Malia clicked the magnifying glass next to the bar and took a deep breath, nervously scrolling through the results she found. The majority of what she saw were forum websites, where people posted their questions and those who were educated on the subjects of sexuality and gender answered them, assuring them that they weren’t alone. Among the words she read, “bisexual” caught her eye the most, for the word was basically everywhere; she returned to the search bar with a soft sigh, her eyes darting a few times to where Lydia was reading. A few strands of hair had escaped her ponytail, more on the left than the right, and framed her cheeks as well as her ears; Malia didn’t realize that ears could be cute until then.

            **define bisexual**

            The definition she read made her slam her laptop shut, leaning her elbows on the wooden surface of the table and rubbing her temples.

            **bisexual**  
 **/ˌbīˈsekSH(o͞o)əl/**  
 **noun**  
 **1\. a person who is sexually attracted to both men and women.**

            Lydia looked up with a slight jump, frowning. “Malia?”

            Malia didn’t answer, entangled in a whirlwind of worry with a voice in her head telling her that maybe - just maybe - she had gone to the wrong websites, or had misunderstood what the internet users were trying to say. She had never been great at reading comprehension, so why would this be any different? Over her racing heart, she tried to convince herself that what she read wasn’t real, and neither was this “bisexual” thing; she knew for a fact that the internet wasn’t always right, so with those excuses in her head, she opened her eyes.

            With a deep frown, she noticed that Lydia wasn’t sitting in front of her anymore, and her textbook was closed, her place marked with a mechanical pencil. Instead, her scent was present to the left of Malia, and suddenly, a hand was rubbing at her shoulder. She turned to where the redheaded girl was sitting and blinked more times than a person normally did, her eyes shifting to the wall and staying there. The werecoyote lightly scratched at the table, her claws itching to be released and her teeth starting to feel sharper than usual.

            “Malia?” Lydia’s voice, sweeter than honey and tinged with fear, echoed in her ears. “Hey, hey - look at me. I need you to tell me what’s wrong, okay?”

            The smooth pads of her fingers touched Malia’s jaw, turning her gaze towards the face she loved to look at it. It eased her somewhat, but at the same time, she wanted to look away, because the last thing she wanted was for the genius of Beacon Hills High to tell her that she was being silly, and that “bisexual” wasn’t a thing. She was already considered odd because of the questions she asked, and her ignorance to who Abraham Lincoln was - not to mention her inability to decipher the equations on the board during her first day at school since she was young; the last thing she wanted was to add this to the list of oddities about herself.

            “Sweetheart,” Lydia began, pulling her away from her thoughts and tracing circles around her cheekbones; her fingers were careful and gentle, as if she were cradling an expensive wine in her hands. “Your eyes are glowing.”

            Malia squeezed her eyes shut and curled her hands into fists before exhaling, opening her eyelids once again and unfurling her fingers. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak out like that. I just...I don’t know, I thought of a bad memory.”

            “You’re a terrible liar,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, removing her hands from Malia’s face and opening the laptop. “I would think that after being surrounded by werewolves for the past few months, you would’ve mastered your technique. Anyway, tell me your password, because I’m pretty sure Algebra didn’t make you go AWOL.”

            The brunette crossed her arms in front of her chest, refusing to give in. “You’d be surprised.”

            Lydia turned to her with a deadly glare, and because Malia didn’t like to lose, she gave her a glare of her own in return. They remained that way for several seconds, silence surrounding them.

            “Fine,” Lydia snapped, turning back to the computer with a swing of her ponytail. “I’ll figure it out myself-”

            Malia rolled her eyes, giving in. “It’s ‘password123.’”

            “Of course it is.”

            And because her laptop was apparently a traitor as well as a liar, the page she’d been on just minutes before showed up as soon as Lydia typed in the password. Malia bit her lip, glancing between the screen and Lydia’s side profile to gauge if mind-reading was on her list of powers; it seemed as if that theory was wrong, because she couldn’t hear anything other than the chatter from the television in the living room and the wind that blew against the windows. Farther down her hearing range, she could hear the soft snores of Lydia’s mother from upstairs.

            “Oh, honey,” the other girl breathed out in relief, turning to Malia with both fondness and amusement dancing on her features. “Are you questioning your sexuality?”

            She shrugged, squirming in her chair a little. Okay, so Lydia didn’t think she was in denial - or, at least, she _thought_ she didn’t.

            Lydia cleared her throat and placed her hands in her lap, shifting in her seat so she could face Malia fully. “Well, as a lesbian who wasn’t sure of their sexuality until last year, I can tell you that I know exactly how you feel - and although you’re freaking out right now, it’ll get easier to come to terms with who you are. I mean, as easy as possible in the homophobic society we inhabit-”

            She paused and shook her head, as if keeping herself from getting into a rant. “Anyway, I just want you to know that your feelings are real. _You’re_ real. Okay?”

            Malia looked down with a hitch in her breath, because Lydia had wrapped her fingers around the other girl’s palms. They were warm to the touch, and softer than she thought they would be; her fingers were longer than Lydia’s and a lot more calloused, even though werecoyotes could heal quicker than banshees. Maybe the speedy healing made you rougher on the surface rather than softer.

            “Okay,” Malia whispered, her heart racing for an entirely different reason.

            “Okay,” Lydia repeated with a nod, as if confirming the word’s existence. “If you feel like bisexuality matches your feelings the best, then it’s perfectly fine to go with that label. However, don’t let me or anybody else pressure you to label yourself, because labels are bullshit if you don’t choose them yourself.”

            “Thanks, Lydia,” she replied, feeling a rare moment of lightness. “That really means a lot, especially coming from you.”

            Then, Lydia gave her one of her rare smiles and kissed Malia on the cheek, leaning back with her eyes shining and her lips pinker than bubblegum; the brush of her lips against her cheek left a burning sensation in the same place where she’d kissed her. Was she blushing? God, she probably was, because the girl in front of her knew how to make her feel emotions she’d never felt before. Aphrodite incarnate, she was.

            “No problem, Lia,” Lydia said, and stood up with a quick brushing of her hands against her knees. “Now, back to studying.”

            Malia groaned, frowning at Lydia’s unfairly adorable laughter. “I’m having a crisis, Lyds. You can’t do this to me.”

            “You can finish your crisis _after_ you complete those practice problems. Good grades are crucial to scholarly success, Malia - I would know,” Lydia responded as she sat in her original seat. “Oh, and you should talk to Stiles about your sexuality, too. I have a feeling he’ll be more than happy to listen.”


End file.
